1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to electrical meters, and more specifically to watthour meters constructed to prevent unauthorized usage of electrical energy.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Theft of electricity has always been a problem, and the problem has been growing in magnitude due to the increasing cost of electrical energy. The theft of electrical energy may occur through the use of a stolen electric meter, reorienting a meter to either stop the register, or to cause it to run backwards, internal tampering of the meter to affect the registration of usage, and external wiring which by-passes the meter.
Various approaches have been used in the prior art to discourage the different types of electrical service theft. For example, new meter and meter socket combinations have been designed which permit only a special meter to be plugged into a specially designed meter socket, with the special meter being pluggable into the special socket with only one orientation. This approach prevents reorienting a meter to stop or reverse the register, and it reduces theft by swapping the original meter with a stolen meter between meter reading periods. The use of a new meter-meter socket combination, however, may economically be applied only to new installations because of the time and cost of removing a standard meter socket from an existing installation and rewiring the special meter socket in its place.
It would be desirable to be able to discourage meter swapping and/or reorienting of the meter, without the necessity of removing the standard meter socket from an existing installation and replacing it with a non-standard special socket.